The Buddha's Law Among the Birds

by Edward Conze

In the Buddhist religion, the Dharma concept of the Buddha is not confined to men, but is taught to all kinds of beings, including ghosts and animals. According to a legend Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of mercy, had taken among the birds the form of a cuckoo, an animal which recommends itself to the Buddhist mind by its attitude to family life. The present book constitutes an English translation of the Tibetan original. In his introduction, Dr. Conze not only sketches the background of the story, but gives extracts from another tibetan work, originating from the Kagyudpa school of Milarepa, which describes the spiritual antecedents of the cuckoo. The book in spite of its deep content makes a pleasent and easy reading. As a work of popular interest, it should be welcomed by scholars as well as by general readers interest in Buddhist literature.

65 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Eberhart Julius Dietrich Conze, who published as Edward Conze, studied Indian and comparative philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Hamburg. He later lectured in psychology, philosophy, and comparative religion at Oxford, held a number of academic appointments, and served as Vice-President of the Buddhist Society.

Reviews

[John Eliade · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I learned from a Bunch of Birds. A bunch of Buddhist Birds, to be precise.

I first learned about this text from Alexander Norman’s Secret History of the Dalai Lamas (renamed). The Dalai Lamas (and Bhutan’s Zhabdrungs, among others) are considered human incarnations of the Bodhisattva Avaloketishvara , the enlightened embodiment of compassion. By their nature, Bodhisattvas can incarnate as whatever they desire (unlike us unenlightened beings who are bound by karmic limitations), including as animals such as bees or birds.

I haven’t yet found the text where Avaloketishvara incarnates “as a bee to buzz the Dharma to some worms,” but I was really happy to seize upon this text, The Buddha’s Law Among the Birds, in the library, recognizing it as the gem that Norman wrote about.

There’s a burning question that needs to be answered, or seems to want answering to a Western reader: do Tibetans really believe that an enlightened being incarnated as a cuckoo and po tee weeted the Dharma to a flock of fowl? J. Bacot in his Preface to the 1955 Conze translation (I obtained a 1974 India reprint) begins by describing that a Western reader

may still find it difficult to overcome hi spreconceived ideas regarding the animal world. In Europe a wide gulf separates man from even the most advanced species of animals, and a poem about Buddhism among birds may well strike him as nothing more than a literary fantasy. (7)

In short, Aesop’s Fables, Charlotte’s Web, and bya chos would all seemingly fit into the same category. And, dare I say, it becomes easy to dismiss those for whom these verses were meant as fools who will believe in Middle Earth if they read The Hobbit, or assume that they would view the scripture as we would: one with moral value and an illustrative function.

Conze’s post-script in his translation reminds the reader that Christians had their fair share of animal ministry as well: the Buddha taught the Dharma for all sentient beings, St. Francis ministered to teh birds gathered at his feet. Chaucer’s Chauntecleer is a talking cock who clucks Platonic philosophy, byas chos‘ Cuckoo is an avowed Yogacarin:

All the elements of this samsaric world and of Nirvana, – all are the products of your own thought. Pure thought in its beginning is not distracted by any object whatsoever. It is empty and impersonal, unproduced, unstopped, it stays not, neither does it go nor come. (36)

But that animals can be illustrative and a creative outlet for character development isn’t the question here. I love Bojack Horseman and have way too many questions about how the animal world of Zootopia functions.

The real question is did they believe that this was a real event being depicted?

I think that’s a lot harder of a question to answer satisfactorily because the answer isn’t a binary true/false distinction. In a Western post-Scientific Revolution understanding, things are either verifiably provable and fall in the realm of truth, or are unverifiable and tend to fall towards falsehood – in the sense of how our framework for understanding the world is constructed, not necessarily in an epistemological sense.

In pre-Scientific thought, however, the dividing line between verifiably true and false was not so distinct, and much of non-European thought in an era when European notions were seized by a sharp distinction between truth and falsehood is still drawn from a pre-Scientific tradition. Note, I’m not saying Buddhists, Asians, or pre-Scientific Europeans are gullible and can’t distinguish between fact from fiction, but that the line is blurred to an extent where a liminal third space frequently applies, a category I would call Mythology.

Today, Mythology refers to stories we know not to be true. Epics told to a tribe around a campfire that shed light on lonely corners of the world, but not much else. Equal parts entertainment and explanatory lies. At best, noble lies, but still lies. This is why so much of the Debate around Genesis vs. Evolution revolves around the verifiability of the Bible and the holes in Darwinian theory. People who are born post-Internet, (i.e. well into the Scientific Era) will cling to the beleif that Adam and Eve are verifiably true, while Evolution still lacks evidence. A logic filled with holes, but still firmly rooted in the true/false distinction drawn from the Scientific Revolution.

And never will they entertain the thought that something can be literally fabricated but deeply true.

This is what I refer to when I think of Mythological Truth: a fabrication that holds meaning deeper than the apparent.

And this is where we find bya chos.

Conze spends a lot of time in the Background section discussing the early Indian and Tibetan notions of soul transference, specifically into birds, about the examples put forward in Tibetan literature like The Tale of the Bird Blue-Neck, the Moon (of the doctrine), who has the Spirit of a Bodhisattva, or Ear-rings for those who see through the unsubstantial Nature of this whole Samsaric World. (Actual title.) But even if this story is presented as the literal conversation of birds among an inter-species flock, many epistemological problems remain. Bringing up those problems, however, really only serve to function as an ad hominem (ad avem?) argument. The philosophical positions, whether in the mouths of actual Buddhist monks, or the beaks of cuckoos and parrots, still apply.

And there’s a lot to really take to heart in this text. Each bird announces itself with an onomotopaeic phrase that becomes its philosophical ground:

Thereupon the Cock, the domestic bird, rose, flapped his wings three times, and said e go e go, which means, do you understand that? Do you understand that?
…
We are bound to lose those we love and trust, – do you understand that?
…
Wherever one looks, nothing is there substantial, – do you understand that? (29)

But after all of the birds announce their concern and despair for the impermanence and suffering of the world, it is Compassion incarnate as the Great Cuckoo who delivers a rather succinct and hopeful release to the suffering of the world.

The things of this samsaric world are all illusion, like a dream.
Where’er one looks, where is their substance?
Palaces built of earth and stone and wood,
Wealthy men endowed with food and dress and finery,
Legions of retainers who throng round the mighty, –
These are like castles in the air, like rainbows in the sky.
And how deluded those who think of this as truth!
When uncles – nephews – brothers – sisters gather as kindred do,
When couples and children gather as families do,
When friends and neighbours gather in good fellowship, –
These are like meetings of dream friends, like travellers sharing food with strangers.
And how deluded those tho think of this as truth!
This phantom body grown in uterine water from a union of seed and blood, –
Our habitual passions springing from the bad deeds of our past,
Our thoughts provoked by divers apparitions, –
All are like flowers in autumn, clouds across the sky.
How deluded, O assembled birds, if you have thought of them as permanent.
The splendid plumage of the peacock with its many hues,
Our melodious words in which notes high and low are mingled,
The link of causes and effects which now have brought us here together, –
They are like the sound of echoes, the sport of a game of illusion. (34-5)

We in the West are no strangers to animals in our fiction. But it is easy to slip into a orientalist mindset over “the superstitious masses of Asia” when dipping our toes into their literature. This short text really is a gem of Tibetan literature, with charm, and wit, and a deeper value that can be appreciated without advancd knowledge.

In short, I really enjoyed it.

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[Isaiah El-Hashr · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a passage toward the beginning of the book that left an immense impact on me concerning the worthlessness of our transitory abode:

“I have surveyed this ocean of Samsara,
And I have found nothing substantial in it.
Down to the very last, I saw the generations die,
They killed for food and drink, — how pitiful!
I saw the strongholds fall, even the newest,
The work of earth and stones consumed, — how pitiful!
Foes will remove the hoarded spoils
down to the very last,
Oh to have avidly gathered this wealth, and hidden it, how pitiful!
Closest friends will be parted, down to the very last,
Oh, to have formed those loving thoughts of affection, — how pitiful!
Sons will side with the enemy, — even the youngest,
Oh to have given that care to those who were born of one’s body, — how pitiful!
Relatives united and intimate friends,
Children reared and riches stored,
All are impermanent, like an illusion,
And nothing substantial is found in them.”

While perhaps leaning on nihilism, and not offering a convincing solution to this existential quandary, these flashes of reflection are something upon which one of intelligence would take the opportunity to stop and ponder.

[Karma Pema Tsering · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amo el libro.. es realmente un tesoro. Tan simple y tan profundo! Gracias <3

[My Tien Khuc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charmingly concise collection of Buddhist wisdom, narrated in beautiful prose by our feathered friends.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a rare, lovely little book produced by the great Conze, wonderfully and simply illustrated. I like the reference within it about Saint Francis, my own favourite saint whom I am named after, and the most Buddhist of all the Christian saints.